In the last chapter, Ptolemy walked us through a light proof on how to find the apparent position of a planet. But, immediately in this chapter, Ptolemy tells us that going through that process every time is troublesome:
[A]lthough that method is the only one which provides a fully accurate solution to the problem, it is too cumbersome to be convenient for [astronomical] investigations.
What is Ptolemy’s solution?
As you probably expect, it’s to make tables that allow us to calculate quickly:
We have constructed, for each of the five planets, a table which is easy to use as we could devise, while at the same time being very close to full accuracy.
In this chapter, we’ll follow along as Ptolemy explains how they are laid out.
However, Ptolemy’s description is not well explained, so I will interweave this with a more comprehensive explanation based on Neugebauer’s History of Ancient Mathematical Astronomy. Continue reading “Almagest Book XI: Constructing the Tables of Anomaly”